of the turmoil on wall street has been triggered by fears over the european debt crisis and the anemic economies. and richard quest, one of the best people to turn to when we want perspective on the global economy. he joins us from london. what happened in the european markets today? reporter: the europeans went down initially and then down further and they rallied with wall street. we closed down 1% in london, and paris 1%, and frankfurt, once again the german market is being creamed by what is happening at the moment, by far and away being breutally attacked. and the german industry has made much from the exports and those promised to be hit by the u.s. slowdown and elsewhere in the world. putting it altogether for you, and as we look at the weekend, i cannot agree more with alison, and basically what we are seeing this afternoon is market exhaustion. people have literally just have been gasping there way. there will betrayeding because of triple witching. but by and larg
and toothpicks, and then some people saying i don t want to try the cake because my mouth will get hurt. that s what is going on. this is something that we have been seeing over the last few weeks. is this really any different than the turmoil we have been witnessing? i think ali is spot on. you think back to just before the huge selloff and volatility last week, we had our own numbers that showed we had almost no growth. we have a new manufacturing number today, a regional manufacturing number that really hit investors hard. some analysts say it s a reliable number because it s a fresher number. this number is about manufacturing in august. the index was actually at one of the low points, and the drop was what analysts call stunning and saying it never has been this low without leading to a recession. when you hear things like that, especially with manufacturing considered one of the engines of growth in this country, that s also why you see investors sell at this point.
anderson. he was giggle. that s the first time i have ever seen him completely lose it. it was funny. a lot to talk about this morning. we have breaking news. a suicide truck bomber targeting the u.s. military base in afghanistan. it happened in the city of gardez a few hours ago. officials say the truck ripped through the main security gate. killed two afghan guards. nine others were hurt. and the taliban is taking credit for the attack. less than two weeks after downgrading america s aaa credit rating standard and poor s is the target of a justice department investigation. that s according to the new york times. the feds want to know how the credit rating agency somehow missed the mortgage crisis. you will remember s&p along with the other major credit agencies gave those mortgage backed securities very high ratings. even though would now know they weren t worth the paper they were printed on. the times is reporting the justice department is looking into claims
europeans and the americans might have to have more central bank intervention into the markets and also said that there have been policy decisions in europe and the united states that have been poor, and then on top of that, that was enough. that was already bad, brooke. then we got some economic reports right here in the united states. slowdown in housing, slowdown in manufacturing, and, you know, not a great report about new jobless claims. basically it all piled on. people ran out of stocks and back into into, you know, safer investments, but, really, it all started in europe. let s go there, richard quest. tell us what you did. we had a pretty awful day on the european markets. the dax in germany, main index in germany was off by 6%. by the close, all the major european markets down 4%, 4.5% and 5%. and the real reason, very much following on your theme, having had fear, worry and concern. now there are facts, and they may not be very strong facts, but as we will show
from the summer break. president obama has actively been meeting with some to create a plan. the question is how specific will it be and will it help? white house officials tell us it s a work in progress, and will include tax cuts and infrastructure ideas that could create jobs, and measures that target unemployed, and struggling economic sectors. they say the president is working on a debt reduction proposal and will present the so-called super committee, and as you know it s the 12 lawmakers tasked with cutting trillions from the federal deficit. their plan is due at the end of november. and the president s debt plan will go beyond that $1.5 trillion. now republicans who have been calling on the president to come up with a plan of his own, and they are now responding. we appreciate the fact that he is trying to devote some time to it, and not just on the bus tour, and not vacationing at martha s vineyard, but giving thought to the american people, and i thought that is w